FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

A SpaceX Rocket Carrying Supplies to the Space Station Just Exploded After Takeoff

A SpaceX rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded shortly after liftoff on Sunday morning.
Photo via NASA/Twitter

A SpaceX rocket carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) exploded shortly after liftoff on Sunday morning.

The accident occurred just over two minutes into the launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Pieces of debris could be seen falling into the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket was unmanned, and no injuries have been reported.

More than 5,200 pounds (2,360 kilograms) of supplies were on board, including a first-of-its-kind docking port designed for future commercial crew capsules.

Advertisement

SpaceX, a California-based company led by billionaire Elon Musk, is still trying to figure out what happened, noting that everything appeared to go well in flight until the Falcon 9 rocket went supersonic. The seven previous SpaceX supply runs had no problems.

"The vehicle experienced an anomaly on ascent. Team is investigating. Updates to come," SpaceX said on Twitter.

"Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown," Musk tweeted. "Will provide more info as soon as we review the data."

In a subsequent tweet, Musk said, "There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause."

Footage from the launch showed the rocket becoming a fireball and breaking up into tiny bits.

"One-hundred and thirty-nine seconds into the flight we experienced to an anomaly which lead to failure of the mission," Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX, said. "We are obviously collecting data right now and will be for the next few hours."

Shotwell also said there were "no indication of any safety issues at all" prior to the launch.

This is the second failed ISS supply shipment in a row. In April, a Russian cargo ship spun out of control and burned up upon re-entry, along with all its contents. And last October, another company's supply ship was destroyed in a launch accident.

The rocket that exploded Sunday was carrying replacement food, clothes, and equipment lost in the two previous accidents. The ISS residents reportedly have enough supplies on board to last until October, and Russia expected to attempt another supply launch on Friday from Kazakhstan.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement that the agency is "disappointed" with the mishap Sunday, but noted that, "the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months."

"SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success," Bolden said. "We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.